With most of the performances sold out before the show even opened, Lantern Theater Company has already announced a one-week extension of its current production of Copenhagen, and that’s good news for aficionados of serious theater in Philadelphia. Directed by Kittson O’Neill, the revival of its 2003-04 season hit features the return of the Lantern’s original stellar cast reprising Michael Frayn’s dramatic ruminations on the still-unexplained visit of German Physicist Werner Heisenberg to the home of his former friend, colleague, and Danish mentor Niels Bohr in 1941, when Denmark was under Nazi occupation in the midst of World War II.
Charles McMahon, Sally Mercer, and Paul L. Nolan. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Frayn’s rich script presents a brilliant discourse, integrating lessons on 20th-century history, quantum physics, and the genesis of the atom bomb with astute observations on human motivations and relationships. Framed in the fictional conceit of the men and Bohr’s wife Margrethe posthumously reliving a sequence of “drafts” of the imagined conversations they might have had at their actual meeting – no one, including Heisenberg here, is sure why he went or what was actually said – the different probabilities provide an ingenious parallel to his seminal “Uncertainty Principle” of 1927. Sagacious well-researched references to the leading physicists of the era, their contributions and theories, include a nod to Albert Einstein’s space-time continuum in the meeting of the now-deceased great minds and their timely discussions about scientific pursuits, momentous ethical dilemmas, the effects of anti-Semitism, and the far-reaching socio-political ramifications of their activities and discoveries.
In consistently masterful performances, Charles McMahon as Heisenberg, Paul L. Nolan as Bohr, and Sally Mercer as Margrethe handle the uber-intellectual material with commitment and fluidity, deliver the characters’ profound passion for science and learning, and capture their feelings of awkwardness, anger, and bygone friendship, irreparably damaged by the state of the world and the ‘advancement’ of their field and their careers. O’Neill moves the actors around the stage, as they debate, discuss, and reminisce with each other, directly address the audience, remind one another to use “plain language” so that they can be better understood, gesture emphatically to accentuate their points, and recreate the momentum of subatomic particles with their bodies (only the recurrent movement-based slow-motion sequences of the physicists taking a walk together tend to distract from Frayn’s erudite language). Their characterizations are consummately human, filled with mutual respect and professional competitiveness, laughter and loss, while pondering the presence of conscience and responsibility, reproach and accountability, and recognizing the sobering idea that, although they made it out of the war alive, their work on nuclear fission “may yet kill everyone.” It’s every bit as horrific a thought now, in our current climate, as it was then.
Paul L. Nolan, Sally Mercer, and Charles McMahon. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Nick Embree’s set cleverly evokes the particles and formulae of the central atomic theme, and Natalia de la Torre’s costumes suit the style of the period and characters. Robin Stamey’s lighting gives focus to the figures and distinguishes between their segments of interaction, self-reflection, and uncertain memories, and Daniel Perelstein’s sound design provides an underscore of classical music that subtly enhances the tone of the scenes and the mood of the times.
There’s no uncertainty about it. The Lantern’s remount of Copenhagen is intelligent, thought-provoking, and relevant, holding enduring insight and appeal for a sophisticated audience. We’ve come to expect nothing less from this smart and substantive company, and we got it.
Running Time: Approximately two hours and 30 minutes, including an intermission.
Copenhagen plays through Sunday, February 18, 2018, at Lantern Theater Company, performing at St. Stephen’s Theater – 923 Ludlow Street, Philadelphia, PA. For tickets, call (215) 829-0395, or purchase them online.
Guilty or not guilty? And of what crime? An intriguing real-life episode from 20th-century Art History provides the basis for The Craftsman, Bruce Graham’s latest world-premiere play commissioned and presented by Lantern Theater Company as part of its New Works Initiative. Directed by M. Craig Getting and featuring a dream cast of Philadelphia all-stars, the fictionalized account of the infamous case of artist and art dealer Han van Meegeren – accused of selling newly-discovered “national treasures” by 17th-century Dutch master Jan Vermeer to the Nazis – is a richly-layered examination of truth and deception, human motivation and widespread gullibility, seen in the context of The Netherlands’ fervent commitment to the Nazi Resistance in the aftermath of World War II.
Paul L. Nolan and Anthony Lawton (front right), with Ian Merrill Peakes and Dan Hodge (background left). Photo by Mark Garvin.
Structurally, Graham’s compelling narrative moves back and forth in time, fleshing out the backstories of the key players, the socio-political climate of the Allied nation in and around Amsterdam 1946-47 (following the defeat of the Axis powers), and the seemingly irrefutable evidence presented in the courtroom drama. Flashbacks of personal relationships, encounters, and confrontations – with the recollection of one key scene in the artist’s atelier realistically changing ever-so-slightly with each retelling, as the details of our recounted memories so often do – are interspersed throughout the scenes of van Meegeren’s arrest and trial for the treasonous act of “collaborating with the enemy.”
Getting’s finely-calibrated direction maintains all of the inherent tension and suspense of the story, and captures all of Graham’s signature sardonic wit and irony, up to the astonishing stranger-than-fiction climax that would upend the government’s case, its ‘expert’ witnesses, and the tide of public opinion. He moves the actors seamlessly around the multilevel set (smart and efficient scenic design by Meghan Jones), from the office of the post-war provisional government to the detention room where van Meegeren was held and the court where he was tried, to re-enactments of past events in his studio and outside (signaled by shifts in Shannon Zura’s focused lighting). Every moment is clear and illuminating, and the steady unfolding of each revelation of the plot and character development keeps us on the edge of our seats.
Graham’s ingenious script is brought to life by a stellar six-person ensemble that is cast to perfection, all fully inhabiting the characters and manifesting the flaws that make them consummately human – their egos and insecurities, their self-serving lies and flattery, their feelings of hatred and vengeance engendered by the pain they suffered in their lives and the atrocities they experienced first-hand during the Nazi Occupation. Longtime Lantern favorite Anthony Lawton stars as the crafty van Meegeren, a trained architect and popular self-taught portraitist who established his fame and fortune, and attained the validation and immortality he craved, not as an artist, but as a con man. He is defiant and disheartened, whimpering and laughing, mocking and pleading, determined to prove his talent and delighted to dupe, and then to humiliate, the “esteemed critic” who belittled him as a mere “craftsman.”
Ian Merrill Peakes. Photo by Mark Garvin.
The ever-masterful Ian Merrill Peakes, making his highly-anticipated Lantern debut, co-stars as the artist’s nemesis Captain Joseph Pillel, active soldier during the war, interim leader of the government, and ardent anti-Nazi enforcer who will stop at nothing to hold van Meegeren accountable for his alleged sale of Vermeer paintings to Hermann Göring, the second-highest-ranking official in Hitler’s Third Reich. The evolution of his character is impeccable, as he transforms from a nervous public figure addressing the crowd for the first time to an “avenging angel” resolute on punishing anyone and everyone suspected of collusion with the Nazis – at whose hands he, his nation, and his people suffered immeasurably – to an increasingly gentle and self-reflecting man who comes to regret the rage that has driven him since the war (with “hatred getting in the way of common sense”).
Giving outstanding support to the leads, Dan Hodge portrays the ambitious Prosecutor Boll with just right balance of humor, sensitivity, and strict adherence to the letter of the law, and Paul L. Nolan is laughably imperious as the revered Art Historian Dr. Abraham Bredius, a respected authority on Vermeer, and the “pompous ass” who callously dismisses van Meegeren’s work, while willfully fighting the attacks made against him and his own private life. Rounding out the terrific cast are Mary Lee Bednarek as van Meegeren’s beautiful and forceful second wife Johanna, who demands answers from Pillel, is accepting of her husband’s well-known “debauchery,” and may know more than she’s letting on about the case against him; and Brian McCann, who skillfully distinguishes his three roles as the guard Augustun (who, like Pillel, begins to soften towards his prisoner), the outspoken art conservator Rotke (who gives the artist his uncensored view of the Vermeer painting in question), and the no-nonsense Judge (who presides over van Meegeren’s trial).
The play’s 1940s Dutch setting is enhanced by Kayla Speedy’s period-style costumes (with traditional suits and uniforms for the men and fineries for the wealthy Johanna); by Christopher Colucci’s transportive sound design (including the noise of the angry crowd outside van Meegeren’s cell and the explosions and gunfire of the war); and by Janelle Kauffman’s integral projections (of masterpieces by Vermeer and details of gabled houses from his cityscapes; the paintings sold by van Meegeren; and wartime images of The Netherlands).
With The Craftsman, Bruce Graham proves once again that he is a master at observing the human condition and understanding the deep-seated emotions that drive us. And the Lantern’s world-class production proves once again that this is the thinking person’s go-to theater company, delivering Graham’s insightful vision with a superb cast, director, and design team. In the words spoken by Dr. Bredius, “Great art evokes a response . . . emotion.” The Craftsman does, and is.
Johannes Vermeer, Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window, 1659. Photo courtesy of the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany.
Running Time: Approximately two hours and ten minutes, including an intermission.
The Craftsman plays through Sunday, December 17, 2017, at Lantern Theater Company, performing at St. Stephen’s Theater – 923 Ludlow Street, Philadelphia, PA. For tickets, call (215) 829-0395, or purchase them online.
Philadelphia theater-goers have something extra to be thankful for this Thanksgiving month. Bruce Graham’s latest play The Craftsman, commissioned and developed through Lantern Theater Company’s New Works Initiative (as mentioned in my last interview with Graham in May 2016), will begin previews on November 9. The subject is one that has fascinated the Lantern’s Co-Founding Artistic Director Charles McMahon for decades (as it has me, with a PhD in Dutch Baroque Art): the real-life story of artist and art dealer Han van Meegeren’s forgery of paintings attributed to the 17th-century Dutch master Jan Vermeer, which he created during World War II and sold to the Nazis. Because Vermeer’s works are registered as National Treasures of The Netherlands, and because the country fought on the side of the Allies as a key player in the Nazi Resistance (a fact made famous in The Diary of Anne Frank), the act – considered treason for consorting with the enemy – was punishable by death, were the charges proven and van Meegeren found guilty.
The Lantern has put together a roster of Philadelphia-theater treasures for the world-premiere production. Along with the city’s preeminent playwright and the highly-acclaimed actor Ian Merrill Peakes (both making their Lantern debuts), the team includes a cast of Lantern favorites Mary Lee Bednarek, Anthony Lawton, Dan Hodge, Brian McCann, and Paul L. Nolan, and the top-notch design team of Christopher Colucci, Meghan Jones, Janelle Kauffman, Kayla Speedy, and Shannon Zura, under the skilled direction of company Education Director M. Craig Getting.
I was invited to attend a rehearsal of the show and to discuss the play with Charles and Bruce, which I did on October 31 – the date of Vermeer’s birth in 1632.
Charles McMahon. Photo by Plate 3 Photography.
Deb: When did you first become interested in the van Meegeren forgeries and decide to produce a play on the subject?
Charles: I attended a talk at the Penn Museum in 1998, I believe, by British director, author, and neurologist Jonathan Miller, about how your frame of reference affects how you see something. When I first saw the images by van Meegeren, I couldn’t believe anyone was fooled by them; they look nothing like real Vermeer paintings!
Bruce: As soon as I saw the paintings, I thought the same thing. I couldn’t believe people bought this! In the production we’ll include projections of paintings by Vermeer and the forgeries by van Meegeren, so the audience can see and decide for themselves how different or similar they think they look. We all have our own viewpoints and aesthetic.
Charles: Miller suggested that van Meegeren could get away with the forgeries because in his period of the 1930s, there was an agreement about what factors constituted a Vermeer, elements that everyone recognized. He was a part of that world, so he absorbed it. But the definition of what is ‘Vermeerness’ might change in the context of different generations; it’s all about the viewer’s frame of reference. I could relate to that, because at the time I was reading different translations of Ibsen, which changed with each decade; they spoil like old milk! I had trouble picking the one that would be the most authentic, so the concept of “frame of reference” was of great interest to me.
What was it about the real-life events that appealed to you as the basis for a play?
Charles: For me it was the psychological motivation for believing in falsehood, and the aspect of group-think. Once van Meegeren’s forgeries were accepted by Abraham Bredius, the leading expert of the time, it didn’t matter what they looked like; the universal mentality is “I don’t want to know the truth.” Then, retroactively, people suddenly discern that it’s not true and it’s shattering, so they’d rather disbelieve the evidence and the pedestrian reality, rather than the implausible story, which is more interesting and exciting. It also questions the intersection of what’s authenticity and what’s authority, what is real art, what is genius, and what is just a craftsman’s skill; is there a difference? Those were the intellectual kernels that interested me.
Bruce: There are so many interesting themes that revolve around this story, especially because it’s all done in the context of such high stakes. It’s clear that there were some deep motivations there that go beyond mere ambition and greed.
When and why did you ask Bruce to write the play for the Lantern?
Charles: I’ve always loved his work, so early last year I asked him how his schedule looked and we talked about the ideas I had. He loved it, because the guy’s a conman who goes big to hoodwink the experts, so he was interested from the beginning. Bruce respects the psychology of the downtrodden guy, the pathology of having no resistance to temptation, the irony of a liar telling the truth, and the ultimate question of what is truth? I didn’t write the play myself because what interested me were the abstractions, whereas Bruce’s angle is always the most dramatic.
Bruce Graham. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Without giving too much of the story away, what are the main plot points emphasized in the script?
Charles: Ultimately what makes this story work is that Bruce focused on the conman aspect and the psychology of the human motivation for believing in falsehoods. Van Meegeren tells the simple truth, but people are hesitant to accept it, because one expert, in this case Bredius (played by Paul), can get everyone to believe a lie. What are the facts? The irony is that it takes a conman to identify that, once he gets caught, and then popular opinion falls like dominoes. Structurally, Bruce’s telling revolves around van Meegeren’s trial, injecting into it the aspect of a nation hopping mad and out for blood, in an attempt to purge their country of the specter of the Nazis in the aftermath of World War II.
The cast for the showis nothing short of stellar. Did you have these specific actors in mind for their roles from the beginning of the process, or did you hold auditions?
Charles: We held auditions. With a new play by Bruce Graham, we were certain that we could attract great talent, and our pay scale now is very competitive with the salaries of the top-tier big-budget companies. It was an open call, with union actors given first crack, and then non-union afterwards, for about three days. There were a few people we were really hoping would be available; Ian and Tony were high on that list, in the most pivotal roles in the play. While the story is centered around Tony’s character, the emotional journey of Ian’s character drives the story in the way that Bruce has framed it; the nuance and subtlety that he brings to Pillel’s development are key to the story, and of course he does it brilliantly. The rest of the cast has worked with us before, so we knew we were making good choices with all of them, as well.
At what point did you decide to hand the show over to Craig to direct, instead of doing it yourself?
Charles: I’m interested in our company telling great stories, and I’m confident in our team to do it, so I didn’t need to direct. Bruce has put a great story on the page, and Craig has grown and progressed since he’s been with us. We’ve been giving him bigger and bigger projects, so I knew he was more than capable of handling this one. He’s very meticulous, analytical, and detail oriented, but he doesn’t get stuck, he’s good at prioritizing. Throughout our history, we’ve gotten great rewards back from giving our young directors major productions and challenges.
As Artistic Director, were you still involved in much of the process in terms of development and design?
Charles: I was more involved in the early stages, in giving notes, but I try not to interfere. There are big character reversals in the second act, invested with feelings and meaning; those things change through the rehearsal process. Plus at the end of the play, there is antagonism, but it’s not obvious; it’s a subtle combination of hate and the need for approval. We’ve discussed the mechanics of a few scenes, but it was more about the scale and proportion of things. Meghan Jones is a wonderful Scenic Designer and she’s very accomplished at solving the problem of a unit set in our odd L-shaped space, which she’s done many times before. Chris Colucci is doing the sound and Shannon Zura the lighting, so it’s been important for them to watch how the story unfolds, as have I, but my role at this point is to let these trusted artists work, and then I just give my impressions.
I know Bruce has been a presence at the readings and rehearsals, and has made some adjustments to the script. What is the tone you’re going for – straight drama or dark comedy?
Bruce: We had three readings with small audiences to see what worked and what didn’t. Right now I’m on my eleventh version of the script, tracking the evolution of the characters to make sure the audience buys it. I’m also being very careful about my word choices, so that it’s true to the language of art and of the period. The subject is different from the plays I usually do, which are set in America, mostly in Philadelphia, though I have done period pieces before – of old Hollywood, but not of European history. I did a lot of research for this. I read five books on the subject of the painters, to make sure I had the background and the characteristics; then I felt more comfortable with setting the dramatic tone and seeing the sardonic irony of van Meegeren’s story.
Charles: It’s a darkly funny straight drama of characters on the edge, at monumental risk, which results in some elements of gallows humor. One example is the secular creed of Dan’s character Boll. He has professional integrity, he’s serious about the letter of the law and doing it by the book, but personally he doesn’t have the same high moral code in his comments about van Meegeren’s attractive wife Johanna (played by Mary Lee), which leads to Pillel’s most darkly comic line. It’s funny and horrifying at the same time.
After the world premiere at the Lantern, is there any interest in traveling the show to New York, Chicago, or maybe even The Netherlands?
Charles: Bruce has the rights, we’re the commissioning organization, but yes, I would be interested in seeing it launched. As Bruce said, this is a theme that is not specific to Philadelphia, it could play anywhere, with its subject of Vermeer and the aftermath of World War II. But it’s different from other WWII dramas, in that it’s not rooted in smoking out the Nazis for trial, but in examining the psychological effects of the War on a shattered country and the citizens who suffered through it. That’s not told as often as other types of WWII stories, but audiences everywhere know the context.
Bruce: Yeah, wherever it lands is great with me. I’m usually hands off and not that involved with these kinds of things. Director Jim Christy once told me that I’m “the closest there is to a dead playwright.”
Is there a specific target audience you’re aiming for, or does it hold appeal and a significant message for everyone? What are the takeaways from the real-life events portrayed in the show?
Charles: I generally think most of our work has a sort of obvious audience, though they’re not necessarily the majority of people who come. A lot of people will come to this for the art, the history, and the pathological psychology, but everyone who loves a fabulous story should also see it. It’s very suspenseful, a real story written as fiction, so I expect it to have a wide crossover appeal.
Many thanks, Charles and Bruce; I look forward to seeing the full-stage production, as should Philadelphia audiences!
Jan Vermeer, Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window, 1659. Photo courtesy of the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany.
The Craftsman plays through Sunday, December 10, 2017, at Lantern Theater Company, performing at St. Stephen’s Theater – 923 Ludlow Street, Philadelphia, PA. For tickets, call (215) 829-0395, or purchase them online.
There’s a lot going on in Lisa Kron’s life. There’s her brother’s upcoming marriage, a ceremony that’s being held at a Jewish community center with “a wonderful design out of a 1972 James Bond movie.” There’s her family’s annual trip to Cedar Point, the Ohio amusement park famous for having over a dozen roller coasters. Her blind, 75-year-old father claims to love riding the coasters, even though when he gets on an especially fast one, Lisa observes, “he has a look on his face like a horse in a fire.”
Leah Walton. Photo by Matthew J Photography.
And then there’s the trip she took with her father to Europe, where they visit the town in Germany where he was born – as well as Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where his parents were killed.
Lisa’s father, you see, has had a lot going on his life too.
In 2.5 Minute Ride – the title comes from the length of the trip on that roller coaster – Kron switches back and forth between these three stories. She never makes a direct parallel between them, but by contrasting different parts of her father’s saga and telling the stories in graphic, concise detail, she paints a remarkably full portrait of a life filled with both pleasure and pain. And sometimes, as on a breakneck roller coaster ride, the pleasure and pain can come at the same time.
At first, Kron’s monologue seems like just another chronicle of a family full of eccentrics – a mother who refuses to have her picture taken, a “closet queen” uncle complaining about strangers’ eating habits. You’ve seen families like Lisa’s before, of various nationalities and religions. And when Lisa reaches the amusement park and complains “The day has just begun and already I’m feeling trapped, trapped, trapped with my family,” you may feel you know where this is going.
Leah Walton. Photo by Matthew J Photography.
But you’d be wrong. 2.5 Minute Ride soon transcends formula, largely due to the compassion and humanity in Kron’s portraits of her family. Her script is full of wry observations, but she never tries too hard to be cute. And when it pivots in tone to examine the legacy of the Holocaust, it also deals with that horror from an unexpected angle. Kron’s father worked during the war as an Army interrogator, where he once broke the spirit of a Gestapo officer, but now, decades later, he’s haunted by the memory of his enemy and ponders how much the two men had in common and how little separated their fortunes.
Unlike many one-person shows, there’s a strong theatrical sensibility at play here. Instead of just telling the audience her story, the narrator is commenting on a series of slides she’s showing the audience. Except we never see the slides – they’re indicated by lighting shifts and the sound of a clicker. (Alyssandra Docherty designed the lighting, and Larry Fowler did the same for the sound.) It’s a neat effect that prevents the show from becoming too literal – but we can visualize the photos based on Lisa’s vivid descriptions.
Kron – now best known for her superb, Tony-winning book and lyrics for the musical Fun Home – originally performed 2.5 Minute Ride in the late 1990s as a one-woman piece in New York and elsewhere. But in this Philadelphia-area premiere, her role is played by Leah Walton. Walton is completely winning, with a chipper effervescence that makes the 90 minutes fly by. But when the horrors of Auschwitz provoke Walton to fury, her anger feels earned. At one point she struggles to regain her composure, and it’s a touch that grounds her performance.
It’s in such moving moments that the hand of Director Elaina Di Monaco is most evident. She never lets Walton rely solely on her fast-talking charm; it’s in the show’s moments of stillness and poignant reflection that it’s most resonant.
Sara Outing’s elegant production design fills the Theatre Horizon stage with empty picture frames, echoing the missing slides from the unseen carousel. They remind us that as vivid as Lisa Kron’s story and Leah Walton’s performance are, they can only hint at the full measure of a life.
Running time: 90 minutes, with no intermission.
Leah Walton. Photo by Matthew J Photography.
2.5 Minute Ride plays through Sunday, October 29, 2017 at Theatre Horizon – 401 DeKalb Street, in Norristown, PA. For tickets, call the box office at (610) 283-2230, or purchase them online.
Taking its name from the romantic wartime ballad famously recorded by Marlene Dietrich in 1945, and which, in its earlier German and English versions, had become uniquely popular with both Nazi and Allied troops during World War II, Lili Marlene, with book, lyrics, and music by Michael Antin, makes its East Coast Off-Broadway debut at St. Luke’s Theatre following its Spring premiere in Los Angeles. Using the familiar song as the centerpiece of the story, the original musical, presented by John Lant (Producing Artistic Director of Write Act Repertory), recounts the rise of Nazism at the end of the Weimar Republic (1932-33), as seen through the lens of a cabaret singer and her love in Berlin. Sound familiar? While the show mirrors the era, setting, and basic plot points of Cabaret, it varies in some of the details, and generally lacks the authenticity, credibility, and emotional intensity of the Broadway classic.
Clint Hromsco and Amy Londyn. Photo by Lou Vitacco.
Here the star of the local cabaret is Rosie Penn, a German-Jewish orphan saved by Dietrich herself, asking only in return that the girl, whose singing she encouraged, should always perform the eponymous song – a glaring anachronism in a story set in the early 1930s. Though originally created as a poem in 1915, by German writer Hans Leip during his service in World War I, the verses were not expanded or published until 1937, before being set to music by Norbert Schultze in 1938, recorded and popularized by Lale Andersen in 1939, and then becoming one of Dietrich’s signature songs, under its current title, in the following decade. Nonetheless, it plays a key role in the fictionalized historical narrative and figures prominently in the story’s conclusion.
At the nightclub, Rosie catches the eye of Willi, a Count and head of the country’s Passport Bureau, who falls in love with her and takes her to meet his aristocratic family. They, along with the cabaret’s emcee, all soon come to realize the dangers of the socio-political situation and commit to a course of action, actively protesting the tide of Nazism, discreetly helping others to leave the country before it’s too late, and making plans for their own escape, after Willi’s nephew and niece become victims of Nazi atrocities.
The serious subject and haunting titular song should provide the bases for a compelling show. But they are undermined by predictable dialogue, trite sing-songy rhymes and rhythms (musical direction and arrangements by Rocco Vitacco and keyboard accompaniment by Anessa Marie), and groan-inducing attempts at humor, including jokes about the Nazis that only work in English, not in the characters’ native German (e.g., “What do you call a blind German? A not see”), all of which serve to trivialize the gravity of the horrific historical events. Directed and choreographed by Mark Blowers, the delivery is slow and stilted and the dance numbers unimaginative, falling short of the implicit moods of sexual seductiveness in “Take Me Home Tonight” and drunken revelry in “Fill My Stein with Beer” (which oddly synthesize the cabaret with a beer hall).
Ensemble. Photo by Lou Vitacco.
Matt Mitchell is a standout in the cast as Willi’s nephew Josef, capturing the passion of the outspoken young dissident, who sings that it’s “Time To Stand Up” and then pays the ultimate price for his political activism. In the leads, both Amy Londyn as Rosie and Clint Hromsco as Willi bring their fine rich voices to the musical numbers (her pure clear renditions of “Lili Marlene” are profoundly affecting), but they display little chemistry as a couple or any real connection to the characters’ emotions.
Adrianna Covone’s costumes mix period-style suits and Nazi uniforms with cocktail dresses that have a more current look, and the set design of faux-brick panels, movable tables and chairs, and a projection-screen backdrop is also inconsistent in its evocation of an apropos era. During the performance I attended, there were issues with lighting cues (lighting by Maarten Cornelis), which distracted from the scene.
The theme of Lili Marlene is momentous, but the uneven quality of the present Off-Broadway production fails to live up to the significance of the story and the impact it could and should have.
Running Time: Approximately two hours, including a 10-minute intermission.
Lili Marleneplays through Tuesday, October 10, 2017, at St. Luke’s Theatre – 308 West 46th Street, NYC. For tickets, call the box office at (212) 239-6200, or purchase them online.
Tony Kushner divided his epic play, Angels in America, into two parts. The second half, subtitled Perestroika, was beamed live to cinemas worldwide on July 27 from London’s National Theatre where it’s in the midst of a sold-out run.
This play, lasting four-and-a-quarter hours, starts with a monologue, just as the first half did.
Nathan Lane. Photo by Helen Maybanks.
Kushner’s script has hardly any soliloquies where a character reveals his inner thoughts, in asides, to the audience. Instead, almost all of the talk is in conversations between the garrulous characters. One exception is a rabbi’s eulogy at the start of Part One upon the death of the grandmother of one of the leading players.
This scene is important because the rabbi points out the significance of the journey the old woman made from Europe many years before; a great journey which portends the journey which the characters are going to undertake in these plays, and a journey — a transformation — which Kushner calls upon America to make.
The start of Part Two has a counterpart, a speech by “the world’s oldest living bolshevik” who bemoans the failure of the noble experiment of bolshevism (the Soviet form of socialism). He regrets the fact that Russia is imitating America with its cheeseburgers and other manifestations of capitalism.
Perestroika (Russian for “restructuring”) was the reform political movement led by Mikhail Gorbachev which led to the end of the Soviet Union. Perestroika, the play, picks up where Part One ended. Two men are dying of AIDS. They are polar opposites. Prior Walter (Andrew Garfield) is a respected member of New York’s gay community and Roy Cohn (Nathan Lane) is a closeted, powerful right-wing politician. A romance is in progress between Joe Pitt (Russell Tovey) who is the protégé of Cohn, and Louis Ironson (James McArdle), the ex-lover of Prior, while Pitt’s wife Hannah (Denise Gough) escapes into drug use.
But plot details are relatively unimportant because Angels is more a fantasy than it is a narrative. Kushner’s ruminations are more important than the specifics of what happens. His subtitle, appropriately, is A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, with the accent on fantasia.
Three of the most fantastic scenes are in Part Two: Harper’s delusional trip to Antarctica, which prompts a discussion of the ozone layer and other environmental issues (written in 1990!); Louis’s delirious look at a diorama in the Mormon informational center in Manhattan, which provides historical background on Mormonism; and a visit to heaven where we see and hear a clash between passive acceptance and a return to harsh reality where one can deal with painful issues.
Andrew Garfield. Photo by Helen Maybanks.
Kushner, a secular Jew, seems to be saying that the idea of heaven is all well and good but what’s more important is to stay on earth as long as one can, and continue to fight against illness and injustice. The idea of pioneer Mormons crossing the prairie, incidentally, provides an interesting link with the immigrant European Jews making their trans-Atlantic journey.
Dramatic confrontations in Part Two are combative. Especially gripping are Prior’s disputatious reunion with Louis, Cohn’s bullying of his drag-queen nurse Belize (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), Belize’s take-down of Louis for his hypocrisy, and Cohn’s excruciating death scene where the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg gets the last laugh at the manipulator who intervened with a judge and insured that Ethel was electrocuted after her conviction for spying.
Playgoers should note the mitigating factor that Ethel and her husband passed secrets to Russia when it was America’s ally in World War II, not to an enemy nation; but Cohn was hostile to any clemency, and he prevailed.
Sparks fly during each of those confrontations, and there’s sassy humor. The acting of Garfield, Lane and McArdle rise to eloquent heights here. Garfield in particular is haunting and spellbinding.
A deficiency in proper American accents by a few cast members is puzzling, especially in contrast to the perfect American speech by the Irish Gough and the Scottish McArdle. My other reservation concerns Amanda Lawrence’s appearance as The Angel. I don’t like to pick on actors for their looks, but I regret that Lawrence appears to be plain and skinny, because she is supposed to be so voluptuous and seductive that Prior, even though he’s gay, gets erections and ejaculates whenever he sees her. It’s in the script.
Marianne Elliott’s direction and Ian MacNeil‘s sets reach their best when a glowing ladder descends to transport Prior to heaven, and in the subsequent scene in heaven.
Running Time: Four hours and 15 minutes, including two intermissions.
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes plays through August 19, 2017, at the National Theatre, London. The first part, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, was presented by Fathom Events live in HD at selected cinemas on July 20, 2017. Part two, Angels in America: Perestroika, was shown live in cinemas on July 27, 2017. Encores of both parts will be announced for selected locations. Tickets to the HD screenings can be ordered online.
Read Steve’s review of Angels in America: Millennium Approacheshere.
Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 was the major undertaking at The Philadelphia Orchestra’s concerts of May 3, 5 and 6, 2017. Yannick Nézet-Séguin led the piece as a prelude to a year-long celebration of Bernstein’s centenary. (He was born on August 25, 1918.) Nézet-Séguin conducted the concerts in the midst of a three-week stint leading Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman at The Metropolitan Opera in New York (including a performance on May 4).
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano. Photo by Dario Acosta.
Bernstein began the piece in the summer of 1939, right after his graduation from Harvard at the age of 20. Concerned about the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany, he wrote what he called a “Hebrew Song” for soprano and orchestra, based on the biblical Book of Lamentations. Then he put it aside as became a freshman at The Curtis Institute.
He included a version of that song in a three-movement symphony in 1942, which he called Jeremiah and which he entered in a competition where his conducting mentor Serge Koussevitsky was chairman of the jury. The symphony did not win a prize; not even honorable mention.
The titles which Bernstein gave to the three movements — Prophecy, Profanation, Lamentation — sound pompous, and the music is more accessible without such labels, at least without the first two. The last section is Bernstein’s vocal setting of part of the Book of Lamentations, about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. (Scholars once thought, but no longer, that the book was written by the prophet Jeremiah.)
Bernstein’s conducting professor from Curtis, Fritz Reiner, suggested that Lenny’s music could find an audience if he added a fourth movement because, as Bernstein related, “[Reiner] insists it’s all too sad and defeatist.” Bernstein refused. Exhibiting the brashness of his youthful personality, Bernstein said “I seem to have had my little say as far as that piece is concerned.” Mutual friends who knew Lenny in those days told me that he definitely was assertive and sometimes rude; never docile.
In November 1943 Bernstein made his legendary conducting debut with The New York Philharmonic as a substitute for Bruno Walter, which propelled him to fame. Reiner invited Bernstein to conduct the premiere of this Symphony No.1, left untouched as Bernstein insisted, with The Pittsburgh Symphony on January 28, 1944. Mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel was soloist. Within the following year, Bernstein conducted it with The Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Rochester, Prague and Jerusalem.
Yannick’s conducting of the symphony started boldly and assertively, with pulsating brass chords in dissonance with weepy violins and whispering bass fiddles. The movement projects the patriotic fervor that accompanied America’s entry into World War II. It includes variations on the musical theme of the Amidah, included in synagogue worship as 18 benedictions that declare praise for God.
Peculiarly, Bernstein at the time denied that he quoted Jewish liturgical melodies. Was he embarrassed to admit that he had? Not likely, considering his personality. But those were days when it was rare for Jews to speak out and to identify as Jews. Bernstein even considered changing his last name to Amber to disguise his religion. Or maybe Bernstein’s musical sourcing was unconscious.
The second movement is a scherzo that portrays destruction and chaos. Bernstein later admitted that he based this middle movement on his bar mitzvah portion, “derived, note for note”, sped up and “rhythmicized.” To modern ears, it resembles the Latin music in the gym scene of West Side Story. Bernstein’s irregular rhythms derive from his familiarity with the non-metrical structure of the Hebrew language, which is based on the alternation of syllables, without regard to meter.
The third movement, in Bernstein’s words, “is the cry of Jeremiah as he mourns his beloved Jerusalem, ruined, pillaged and dishonored.” Sasha Cooke eloquently sang the tune which repeatedly goes downward, expressing outrage and defiance. The Hebrew words are about Jerusalem — “How doth the city sit solitary” — but the city’s name is used as a representation of world Jewry which seemed to be ignored by the world as it was being exterminated. A quiet woodwind and strings postlude suggested a glimmer of hope.
Radu Lupu, pianist. Photo by Pekka Saarinen.
Romanian-born Radu Lupu joined the orchestra for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24in C-minor which is one of his rare concerti in a minor key. The 71-year-old pianist is white-haired and bearded like a patriarch. If you love Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G-minor, as I do, you’ll appreciate the wistfulness of this concerto. Lupu played very quietly. In particular, the second Larghetto movement has a lovely simple melody which seemed almost free-form, and Lupu explored it reflectively.
Indeed, Mozart seems to have been experimenting with this piece. He took his time; the concerto is one of his longest. He wrote several anticipatory endings and he never got around to composing the expected cadenzas to lead-in to the conclusions of his movements (Lupu composed his own). Sometimes the music seemed to be beautifully suspended in midair. The concerto was not published during Mozart’s lifetime.
Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 was an appropriate companion piece on this program because the composer was a depressed man. The symphony sounds pessimistic, exemplified by a melancholy bassoon in the Adagio. Some people find jubilation in the first movement, but I’m struck by the slight dissonance between brass and strings. Schumann referred to it as a contrapuntal combination of two distinct melodic lines; but if you want to be dramatic about it, you might say it’s a bit schizophrenic.
Schumann had delusions about being poisoned, and he attempted suicide. He was to be diagnosed with dementia praecox and committed to a mental asylum. Present-day psychiatrists believe that Schumann had bipolar disorder. He died at 46, ten years after he wrote this symphony.
Running Time: Two hours and 5 minutes, including one intermission.
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano. Photo by Dario Acosta.
Developed out of a conversation playwright and lead actor Lowell Byers had with his cousin Lou Fowler – a Sergeant in the US Army Air Corps during World War II – upon their first meeting in 2009, Luft Gangster gives a dramatic personal account of the veteran’s thirteen-month ordeal as a POW in a Nazi prison camp. Under the incisive direction of Tony Award-winner Austin Pendleton, the harrowing real-life story, a co-presentation of NyLon Fusion Theatre Company and Cloverleaf Collective, conveys the horrors of war, the human instinct to survive in the most hopeless of circumstances, and the inexplicable arbitrariness of death, while capturing the psychological and emotional states of both the prisoners and their captors.
Noel Joseph Allain, Lowell Byers, and Eric T. Miller. Photo by Al Foote III.
Set in Nazi-occupied Europe from 1942-45, the production combines slow-paced scenes that evoke the interminable tedium of captivity with shocking episodes of sudden violence and the disoriented hallucinatory visions of the wounded and suffering protagonist. Authentic passages of dialogue in German, Slovenian, and Italian underscore the difficulty he and his fellow Allied soldiers had in communicating with the Europeans in their native tongues, contributing to their sense of displacement, alienation, and uncertainty. We feel it, along with the cruelty and fear, suspicion and camaraderie, dread and boredom, despair and daring, all embodied with credibility and depth by Byers and an excellent supporting cast.
Paul Bomba, Lowell Byers, Andy Truschinski, Sean Hoagland, and Ralph Byers. Photo by Al Foote III.
Seth James as Peter, Noel Joseph Allain as Randall, Sean Hoagland as Joe, Eric T. Miller as Rawlings, and Paul Bomba as the funny and gregarious Vinny all skillfully deliver the distinctive personalities and accents for the British and American troops brought together as prisoners and working together (or is there a Nazi infiltrator among them?) to make their escape. Ralph Byers is chilling as the sadistic RSD Colonel who threatens and torments them, while Gabe Bettio’s Otto and Andy Truschinski’s Werner begin to show glimmers of humanity, as the former shares stories and photos of the family he misses, and the latter gets drunk with the prisoners he’s assigned to watch. Both Truschinski and Bomba bring welcome touches of humor to the hellish narrative. Through it all, Byers’ Lou remains steadfast, giving only his name, rank, and serial number to the German interrogators, while haunted by the memories of his lost family and comrades, and longing to get back home to his girlfriend and future wife Glennie, sweetly portrayed by Casandera M.J. Lollar.
Pendleton uses the entire space of the black box theater, placing the patrolling Nazi guards on the upper-level balcony walkway and thereby surrounding us with the reality of Fowler’s experience. His contrivance of having the dead characters stand up and walk off-stage in an unresponsive zombie-like state only becomes clear as the narrative advances, but the actors’ announcements of the seemingly endless time that has passed for the men in captivity (“two weeks later,” “three hours later”), while they remain in the same place, engaged in the same activities, and having the same conversations, is clever and effective.
Tijana Bjelajac’s simple set design on a small stage elevated on short wooden piers evokes the claustrophobic confinement of the prisoners, supported by Wilburn Bonnell’s lighting, which ranges from general dimness, to spotlights in the darkness, to an unearthly blue glow that illuminates the sequences of dreams and memories. Easily-moved simple wooden chairs represent everything from a hospital bed to the interior of a fighter plane to bunks in the internment camp. While they are a smart time-, space-, and cost-saving device, it is not always immediately evident where the action is taking place (though in most cases that is eventually revealed in the dialogue). Props by Greg Kanyicska, including rifles, a blindfold, and tiny morsels of food, contribute to the mood of uneasiness, terror, and deprivation. Debbi Hobson’s costumes visually define the period and characters, and a superb sound design by Jeanne Travis contrasts the overwhelming noises of war with the popular music and radio broadcasts of the era.
Luft Gangster is presented as part of the Sheen Center’s “’War Is Hell’ Theatre Series.” If you’ve ever had any question about the validity of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous observation, this compelling true story will alleviate any doubts.
Running Time: Approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, with no intermission.
Luft Gangsterplays through Sunday, April 16, 2017, the Sheen Center, Black Box Theater – 18 Bleecker Street, NYC. For tickets, call (866) 811-4111, or purchase them online.
“Who are you?” That is the philosophical question and moral issue raised in playwright Jonathan Leaf’s Deconstruction, a world-premiere three-hander (presented in conjunction with Christopher Ekstrom Productions), which opens the 20th-anniversary season of The Storm Theatre Company. Inspired by the alleged affair between real-life American writer and left-wing political activist Mary McCarthy and the younger Belgian-born academic and literary theorist Paul de Man, the fictionalized historical drama, directed by Peter Dobbins, applies the titular methodology to re-examine their rumored relationship, the backgrounds that shaped their personalities and attitudes, and the ethical relativism of both.
Set over a six-month period in 1949, in the aftermath of World War II and the Nazi occupation of Europe, the well-researched play, characterized by lengthy conversations and minimal action, sets the tone of discursive intellectualism that defines the figures: De Man, McCarthy, and fellow scholar and political theorist Hannah Arendt – the German-born Jewish-American pupil, lover, and champion of Martin Heidegger (a seminal German philosopher known for his contributions to both Existentialism and Deconstruction). In their imagined meetings and discussions, the largely unlikeable characters reveal their traumatic backstories, which they use to justify their questionable behavior, through a personal lens. Leaf smartly shows that, despite their distinctive individual demeanors, all three similarly make excuses and adopt the “subjective truth” that is the most advantageous for themselves.
Jed Peterson and Fleur Alys Dobbins. Photo courtesy of the production.
Jed Peterson, affecting a French-Belgian accent as De Man, captures the devious persona of the lying lothario, flattering and seductive in his efforts to extract the support and recommendation of the already established McCarthy for a faculty position at Bard College. His false charm turns to detachment from her once he gets what he wants, then to anger and threats when her friend Arendt exposes the secrets about his past as a suspected embezzler and Nazi-sympathizer (not the Resistance member he claimed to be), along with the new affair he is having with one of his wealthy undergraduate students.
Fleur Alys Dobbins, who lacked fluency with her lines at the performance I attended, brought a puerile sensibility to the married McCarthy, enraptured by beauty, enamored of De Man, and as deceitful with her husband (her third!) as her lover (separated from his own wife and children) is with her. In contrast with McCarthy’s juvenile demeanor, Karoline Fischer’s Arendt is restrained and unemotive, with an understated German accent and a flat affect, dulled by the atrocities of her youth (but, unfortunately, also a bit dull to watch). While she is suspicious of De Man (who, in the story, makes a pass at her while McCarthy is out of the room) and casts a moral eye on his conduct, she herself is involved in an ongoing affair with the married Heidegger, a Nazi loyalist whom she extols and defends.
Karoline Fischer and Fleur Alys Dobbins. Photo courtesy of the production.
Shannon Kavanagh’s scenic design makes good use of the actual historic venue of the Grand Hall at St. Mary’s, scattering the space with books, and creating separate areas, with minimal furnishings, at different levels of the stepped stage to suggest the varying locales (McCarthy’s country home in Rhode Island, her Greenwich Village apartment, and De Man’s office at Bard). Dobbins confines his blocking of the actors’ movements accordingly, with each of the play’s six scenes relegated to the appropriate area. Period-style costumes by Jeannipher Pacheco tastefully clothe the academic characters (with the exception of a very obvious wig for Arendt). The times and places in the story are effectively evoked by Michael Abrams’ lighting design, and Alex Santullo creates an aural contrast between the orchestral pomp of Europe and the popular Big Band music of America with his clear sound design.
Deconstruction is an intelligent exploration of the eponymous philosophy through the imagined personal lives of its leading proponents. It will make you question the concepts of absolute truth and objective reality, while considering the human tendency to self-vindication through one’s own subjective perspective.
Running Time: Approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.
Deconstructionplays through Saturday, March 25, 2017,at Storm Theatre Company, performing at The Theatre at Grand Hall (St. Mary’s Parish) – 440 Grand Street, NYC. For tickets, call (212) 868-4444, or purchase them online.
“I tell you, War is Hell.” So declared Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman in his 1879 address to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy. In Shades, a New York premiere presented by VIDCAPT in the studio at Cherry Lane Theatre, writer Paula J. Caplan considers the hellish aftermath of war on 20th-century American veterans and their families, referencing her long-term experiences as a clinical and research psychologist, activist, and advocate.
Set in 1997, the play offers a “Fanfare for the Common Man” (the production includes a recording of the 1942 musical piece by American composer Aaron Copland)—the patriotic citizens who sacrifice their own well-being in support of their country—as well as a condemnation of our nation’s ongoing issues of discrimination and bigotry, and the US government’s lies, neglect, and cover-ups, which have impacted them.
Carson Lee, Holly Walker, Ashley Wren Collins, and Hal Robinson. Photo by PJ Norton.
The story revolves around a Jewish-American family suffering the lingering effects of military service. Val, a practicing nurse and early anti-war protestor, has come to visit her soon-to-be-retired widowed father Jerry, a World War II veteran. Her brother Don, a divorced father of two and a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, with whom she has a combative relationship, is battling a mysterious debilitating illness. While there, Val also comes to care for June, an African-American military secretary paralyzed from the neck down when shrapnel from an explosion in Nam lodged in her spine. As a result of her injury, June’s husband left her, and Val recently lost her own husband, of Japanese descent, who had also served in the war.
While the themes are ones that should never be forgotten, the heavy-handed script (self-described as a “dramedy”) contains an overwhelming number of worst-case scenarios afflicting the four inter-related characters, from familial dysfunction, divorce, and abandonment, to personal secrets, denial, and a failure to communicate; from PTSD, the carcinogenic effects of Agent Orange, and suicide, to racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism. As a result, Shades plays more like a relentless socio-political diatribe on recent history and a clichéd lesson on the psychological value of talking about the problems that haunt you, than a focused work of theater, exhaustively presenting, en masse, information that has been known for decades.
As directed By Alex Keegan, the cast–Ashley Wren Collins as Val, Carson Lee as Don, Hal Robinson as Jerry, and Holly Walker as June–is hindered by often stilted implausible dialogue (with lines like “My delicious sweet nephews”) from realistically connecting with the characters and their emotions. Their long-winded monologues sound like the playwright was “transcribing interviews” (as Val does for the book she’s compiling in the show) with the multitude of subjects she treated during her lifetime of studies, rather than creating believable situations among her characters. Lee and Robinson make the best of the lines they’ve been given, and Walker brings some spunk and dignity to her role, but Collins’ exaggerated smiles and histrionic facial expressions, feigned laughter and crying, do little to engender sympathy for Val’s melodramatic plight.
Ashley Wren Collins and Hal Robinson. Photo by PJ Norton.
In keeping with Shades’ homage to “the common man,” costumes by Anna Blazer, props by Elizabeth Frino, and a set design by Becca Kleinman (with some symbolically burnt walls around the family’s living room) evoke the unattractive and unrefined styles of the period. Alex deNevers spotlighting directs attention to the actors’ monologues, and the sound design by Lawrence Schober is clear and balanced for both the dialogue and the tone-setting background music.
Running Time: Approximately two hours and ten minutes, including a 15-minute intermission.
Graphic design by Amy Smith.
Shadesplays through Saturday, December 17, 2016, at Cherry Lane Theatre – 38 Commerce Street, in New York, NY.. For tickets, call (866) 811-4111, or purchase them online.
I’ll Be Seeing You is a delightful portrait of the love and sacrifices of a newlywed couple separated by military service during World War II. The letters between Spark and Charley while Charlie is deployed in the Navy, along with the reminiscences of the couple’s older selves as grandparents, tell a universal story that’s also intimately personal, romantic, often witty and suffused with charm. Incidentally, the couple whose real-life correspondence inspired the show is Spark and Charley Frazier, grandparents of Luke Frazier, Orchestra founder and Music Director.
Frazier collaborated with writer and adapter Kelley Lund and Director Nathan Brewer to tell their story, punctuated throughout with memorable tunes from the Great American Songbook.
Maestro Luke Frazier. Photo courtesy of The American Pops.
The production starred actors Florence Lacey (Spark), Ron Raines (Charley), Claybourne Elder (Young Charley) and Rachel Eskenazi-Gold (Young Spark) — all boasting impressive Broadway and regional musical theater credits — and featured dancers Ronald Bruce Brady and Hannah Jennens.
The song selections captured the spirit of the time, but the vocal performances elevated and transformed otherwise generic hit tunes to embody the experiences and emotions of the couple at their different stages of life. There were incredible solos numbers. Of course, any song performed by Florence Lacey (“When Your Lover Has Gone” and “I Get Along Without You Very Well”) or Ron Raines (“The Very Thought Of You” and “It’s Been A Long, Long Time”) becomes a one-act master class. Rachel Eskenazi-Gold and Claybourne Elder made a perfect young couple, madly in love exuberant, unfailingly optimistic and very funny whether teasing each other poking fun at themselves with self-deprecating humor. Eskenazi-Gold’s beautiful rendition of “You Go To My Head,” holding a crazy, long final note, demonstrated why she was able to debut on Broadway as The Phantom of the Opera‘s Christine Daaé. Elder brightened up the entire stage on “Blue Skies” and “For Me And My Gal.”
The duets were the highlight of the evening. Eskenazi-Gold and Elder singing “The Nearness Of You” and “Embraceable You” and Lacey and Raines on “The Way You Look Tonight” expressed young and seasoned romance. The jaunty duet by Raines and Elder, “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” and the classic Andrews Sisters song, “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree” (from the movie Private Buckaroo, no less) by Lacey and Eskenazi-Gold were both period perfect and incredibly enjoyable.
Ronald Bruce Brady and Hannah Jennens, as choreographed by Kelly Crandall d’Amboise, provided an essential element to the show, especially dancing to iconic songs of the period such as “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “Stompin’ At The Savoy.” It was an era when many couples first met at a Big Band dance venue. Brady and Jennens definitely cut a rug with high kicks and dazzling lifts.
Wonderful period photographs (both Frazier family photos and well-known stock images), newsreel footage, radio clips, celebrity ads for war bonds, etc., were projected on a screen behind the orchestra throughout the show. I bet a lot of folks in the audience went home and dug out their old family photo albums to reflect on fond memories.
What a delightful way to celebrate Veterans Day!
Running Time: Two hours, with one intermission.
SONG LIST:
ACT ONE:
“String Of Pearls” / The American Pops Orchestra, Ronald Bruce Brady & Hannah Jennens
“It Had To Be You” / Ensemble
“The Nearness Of You” / Claybourne Elder & Rachel Eskenazi-Gold
“When Your Lover Has Gone” / Florence Lacey
“Blue Skies” / Claybourne Elder
“Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree” / Rachel Eskenazi-Gold & Florence Lacey
“I’ll Be Seeing You” / Ensemble
“I Get Along Without You Very Well” / Florence Lacey
“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” / The American Pops Orchestra, Ronald Bruce Brady & Hannah Jennens
The Very Thought Of You / Ron Raines
“On The Sunny Side Of The Street” / Claybourne Elder & Ron Raines
“My Guy’s Come Back” / Rachel Eskenazi-Gold
ACT TWO:
“Stompin’ At The Savoy” / The American Pops Orchestra, Ronald Bruce Brady & Hannah Jennens
“You Go To My Head” / Rachel Eskenazi-Gold
“Moonlight Serenade” (Glenn Miller) / The American Pops Orchestra, Ronald Bruce Brady & Hannah Jennens
“The Way You Look Tonight” / Florence Lacey & Ron Raines
I’ll Be Seeing You: A World War II Love Story was performed for one night only, on November 11, 2016 at 8 pm, at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium – 730 21st Street NW, in Washington, DC. For more information on The American Pops Orchestra, go to its website.
Janis Dardaris is a force to be reckoned with. As Mother Courage, standing firm with her hands on her hips and wearing a white, shapeless frock covered by a blue sweater, she is a tower of strength while the world around her is falling apart. With a guttural voice and a world-weary attitude, she watches the landscape around her get consumed by a long and pointless war. But since she makes her living selling provisions to soldiers, she wants to keep the war going as long as possible. “With luck,” she sings at one point, “we’ve still got twenty years to go.”
Janis Dardaris (as Mother Courage) and Forrest McClendon (as The Cook). Photo by Shawn May.
Dardaris’ rich performance is the best reason to see Quintessence Theatre’s respectful and thought-provoking production of Mother Courage and Her Children.
Bertolt Brecht’s ambitious play decries the futility of war by depicting one woman who is determined to make a profit from war in any way possible. She succeeds, but sees her homeland, and her family, torn apart in the process. (Written just before Europe was devastated by World War II, the play is set during another European cataclysm, the Thirty Years’ War of the early 17th century.)
Mother Courage bursts with cynicism and sarcasm, as when Mother observes that “For us at the bottom, there’s not much difference between victory and defeat.” (David Hare’s fine, plainspoken translation, dotted with some modern-day profanities, makes the most of this humor.)
There’s a lot to admire in Mother Courage; Director Alexander Burns’ production has some dramatic moments that cut deep. Yet the play is so didactic (with lots of symbolism, little plot development, and few characters that the audience can identify with), and so long (running three hours), that it can be a challenge to get through at times.
Burns’ production has bold moments throughout that make effective use of Brecht’s alienation techniques, designed to remind the audience of the artificiality of what they’re viewing. (The best is the audacious finale, which makes Brecht’s allusions crystal clear.) And Burns’ set design, with white curtains dominating what should be a bleak landscape, helps a great deal. But some of the staging choices are odd – such as placing crucial moments at the edge of the playing area, where most of the audience has its view blocked by the people in the front row.
Quintessence’s production boasts an original score by Michael Friedman (composer of Broadway’s Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) full of ironic, off-kilter cabaret songs. (Pianist Michael Pacifico and guitarist Tom Carman accompany the singers from offstage.)
The best number is a comic extravaganza led by Forrest McClendon, who gives a sly, cutting performance as a military cook. McClendon’s number starts quietly and climaxes with a kickline full of soldiers (Kaki Burns does the choreography.)
Forrest McClendon (The Cook) and the ensemble. Photo by Shawn May.
Playing the sad sack of a Chaplain who accompanies Mother for much of her journey, Gregory Isaac’s deadpan irony brings a surprising touch of humor to the proceedings. Leah Gabriel livens things up as a boozy and blowsy prostitute, and Leigha Kato is touching as Mother’s mute daughter.
Mother Courage and Her Children is a play that demands a lot of its cast and its audience. It’s not for the fainthearted, filled as it is with calamity and dark humor. But if you’re up for a sobering examination of mankind at its most tragic, then you’ll find this production’s powerful message – and its excellent lead performance – worth checking out.
Running Time: 3 hours, including an intermission.
Mother Courage and Her Children plays through November 6, 2016, at Quintessence Theatre Group performing at The Sedgwick Theater – 7137 Germantown Avenue (Mount Airy), in Philadelphia, PA. For tickets call (215) 987-4450, or purchase them online.
In Part 8 of a series of interviews with the Director and cast of Peace Mountain Theatre Company‘s production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, meet
Bill Hurlbut
Joel: Tell readers where they may have seen you perform on local stages.
Bill: Most recently I played Edward Seaga in the Baltimore Center Stage world premiere of Marley. I have also appeared in productions with Silver Spring Stage, including Orson’s Shadow, Red Herring, Farragut North, and the multiple award-winning Other Desert Cities. I received a WATCH award last year for my performance as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Rockville Little Theatre.
I started acting in the Army in the early 1970s and I have performed in Cincinnati and New York as well as the Washington area. I studied acting at HB Studio in New York and I have a BA in theatre from Miami University (Ohio) and an MA in theatre from Ohio State University. I only returned to performing about three years ago after a long hiatus, during which I had a successful career as a writer and editor for major publishing houses in New York and for the World Bank and other international organizations in Washington.
Why did you want to appear in this production of All My Sons?
I love a challenge and the depth of Arthur Miller’s characters is a challenge for any actor. I studied Miller in school and taught his plays in graduate school. I have also appeared twice in productions of A View From the Bridge and done scene work using some of his other plays. I love working on his well-crafted plays. All My Sons is not as frequently produced or as well known as some of his other plays, so this was a wonderful opportunity to explore the a strong character in a play that will be unfamiliar to most audience members.
Production quality is important to me and I try to pick projects that will set and meet high standards. I heard that Laurie Freed was a director who would do that and that she would attract a talented group of actors to work on the play. I am delighted to be working with her and with the wonderfully talented cast she has assembled.
Tell us about the character you play in the show.
Joe Keller is a successful self-made industrialist and a devoted family man. He is uneducated and a little rough around the edges, so he has struggled a bit to keep up with changing times. During World War II his foundry produced aircraft parts, some of which were defective and caused the deaths of 21 pilots. All My Sons, like Death of a Salesman and A View From the Bridge, follows the model of classical tragedy. Joe is the protagonist, whose fatal flaw is his single-minded, and entirely respectable, focus on building something for his family while ignoring the larger consequences of his actions.
Why is this show relevant for today’s theatregoers?
In the age of social media and the information free-for-all of the Internet, we have become a narcissistic society, more interested in ourselves and our own choices than on the affects those choice may have on others. There is, as All My Sons shows us, immorality in making such choices. Every day our news media report bad choices made by good people or good people “gone bad.” Miller is holding a mirror up to that.
What stands out most to you about All My Sons?
There is an undercurrent of love in nearly every scene of All My Sons. We see it among the members of the Keller family, the members of the neighborhood families, as well as in the affectionate relationships of one neighbor for another. But that love has been warped by the events of the past, leaving raw nerves, bitterness, and resentments. In part this is a story about what war does to love, how it twists it into a misshapen thing that can poison our lives.
What do you want audiences to take away with them after seeing All My Sons?
Through their tears, I hope they can take away with them an understanding that selflessness is necessary to serve our sense of communal well-being.
All My Sonsplays from October 15-25, 2015 at Peace Mountain Theatre Company performing at Congregation Har Shalom – 11510 Falls Road, in Potomac, MD. For tickets, call (301) 299-7087, or purchase them online.
Word has it that English playwright Noël Coward took only five days to write Blithe Spirit during the full fury of World War II, which premiered just six weeks later in June 1941, creating a new long-run record for non-musical British plays of 1,997 performances. Somehow, even while the Germans were barraging London and the death toll was mounting, Coward instinctively knew that he had a wonderfully fanciful idea to compose an off-the-wall, black comedy about glib ghosts that may bring much needed laughter into the lives of war-weary people. Similarly, 74 years later, Everyman Theatre’s season-closing production offers Baltimore theatergoers a spectacularly delightful 150-minute diversion, following recent unrest, with its delicious revival of Coward’s timeless classic.
(L to R) Carl Schurr (Dr. Bradman), Helen Hedman (Mrs. Bradman,) Bruce Randolph Nelson (Charles), Nancy Robinette (Madame Arcati), and Megan Anderson (Ruth). Photo by ClintonBPhotography.
Set on a stylishly sparkling stage, adorned with alluring bright accents, including grand entry doors and a prominently displayed fireplace, exquisitely designed by Daniel Ettinger, Artistic Director Vincent M. Lancisi leads an all-star ensemble of movers and shakers who transport audience members to a glowing era brimming with dry martinis, posh country manors, and personal psychic visits.
Congruent with Coward’s original, novelist Charles Condomine (Bruce Randolph Nelson), hunting for some fresh writing material, invites a dynamically eccentric, bike-riding medium named Madame Arcati (Nancy Robinette) to his home to conduct a séance. Accompanying Condomine on his research endeavor are his second wife Ruth (Megan Anderson), are Dr. and Mrs. Bradman (Carl Schurr and Helen Hedman). From the get-go, everyone is readily skeptical of her unique skill set until, that is, Arcati successfully summons and conjures up a spirit – Condomine’s mischievous, giggly, silk and pearls-clad late first wife, Elvira (Beth Hylton), much to the discomfiture of her successor, Ruth.
Nelson is convincing as the witty and, at times, sharply biting Condomine, keenly pivoting between moments of aristocratic aloofness and escalating waves of emotion. Anderson’s Ruth, donning a daring dark-haired bob and fashionably-fun flock (strikingly styled by Costume Design David Burdick), is catty, complex and society-conscious, commanding a take-charge attitude and intriguing presence. Together, Condomine and Ruth, as exhibited by their vigorous bantering, bordering on bickering, have a cool, companionable marriage that is, perhaps, more irreparably strained than either would ever publicly reveal. Conversely, Condomine’s scenes with the effervescent Elvira, colorfully depicted by Hylton, exude a distinguishable undercurrent of romantic energy and heat.
Nancy Robinette (Madame Arcati). Photo by ClintonBPhotography.
Celebrated DC actress and multiple Helen Hayes Award winner Nancy Robinette delivers a stellar performance in the plum role of Madame Arcati, delicately balancing the ridiculous with the real to achieve a notable level of authenticity topped with infectious enthusiasm and giddiness that instantly permeate the theater, prompting continuous eruptions of laughter. Rounding out the talented cast are Carl Schurr as prim and proper Dr. Bradman, Helen Hedman as the elegant and lovely Mrs. Bradman, and Julia Brandeberry as Edith, the spry, ready-to-sprint maid.
Rich with fine detail in the multi-layered characterizations, impressive special-effects staging and top-tapping transitional jazz interludes, Everyman’s production is truly an amusingly clever theatrical treat that will quickly draw you in and lift your spirits to new heights.
Running Time:Approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.
Blithe Spiritplays through June 28, 2015 at Everyman Theatre – 315 West Fayette Street in Baltimore, MD. For tickets call the box office at (410) 752-2208, or purchase them online.
Watch on the Rhine takes place during a seldom explored or even talked about era in American history. After the Great Depression and The New Deal, but before the bombing of Pearl Harbor there existed a dark period of uncertainty. In Europe, countries and territories fell to the Axis powers. One by one, rights were stripped from Jews and other “undesirables.” In America, there was much hand-wringing, but little action.
Young Bodo Muller (Andrew Sharpe) confidently tries to fix a heating pad for the far-less confident Farrely housemaid, Anise (Mary McLeod). Photo by Colburn Images.
When Lillian Hellman wrote Watch on the Rhine, the future was anything but certain. Even viewing the play with the comfortable distance of nearly 70 years since VE Day (or Victory over Europe), one is discomfitted. The victory of the United States and the Allied powers in World War II is something every school child knows. By the end of Watch on the Rhine, one will be aware of just how dearly bought that victory was and how once it was anything but certain.
The action opens with the Farrelly home in a state of uproar. Today is the day that the prodigal daughter, Sara (Theresa Riffle) and her husband, Kurt Muller (John Coe), along with their gaggle of children, will be coming home for a visit. Fanny Farrelly (Cece McGee-Newbrough), the family’s somewhat neurotic, former Southern Belle, matriarch has planned for their arrival down to the last detail. In the process, she has driven her household staff, her son and her houseguests to distraction. All of Fanny’s careful planning is for naught, when Sara and family turn up early and unannounced.
The family reunion is joyful. Sara and her brother, David (Benjamin Wolfe), are tearfully reunited. Fanny is ecstatic to meet her grandchildren and wonders why David has failed to marry and produce some more. However, the introductions sour when Kurt Muller is introduced to one of Fanny’s house guests, the Romanian Count, Teck de Brancovis (Timothy Sayles). Count de Brancovis is suspicious of Kurt, going so far as to search through the families luggage.
Count de Brancovis discovers that Kurt is a member of the Resistance. This leads to a second act full of intrigue, blackmail, and betrayal. You’ll be sitting on the edge of your seat all the way to the last scene.
Watch on the Rhine is set in a luxurious home somewhere near Washington, D.C.. It could even have been set in Annapolis where Colonial Players is based, but it is more likely that it takes place in Northern Virginia, based on Fanny’s mannerism and the grand, plantation-style house. However, audiences will be charmed by a play that is set close to home and strikes near to the heart.
Walking into the theater for Colonial Players new production of Watch on the Rhine. Is like accidentally stumbling into your grandmother’s sitting room. After you get over the shock of accidentally wandering into an elderly person’s house, one really begins to enjoy the set. David Pindell’s set design is a delight. Carpets, sofas, end tables and even a piano comprise the set, but it nevers looks overdone or overstuffed. It feels as though the audience has gone to watch a drawing room play in someone’s drawing room.
Part of what made Watch on the Rhine such a wonderful production, was the attention to detail. Sound Designer Sarah Wade captures perfectly the natural noises of life, everything from the strains of a piano to the putter of a departing car. The sounds are pleasing and organic. Matthew Shogren, lighting Design, adeptly manages Colonial Player’s new and improved lighting rig.
Late in Act II, there is a magnificently choreographed fight scene. Due to Mark Allen’s excellent fight choreography, one is genuinely concerned for the health and well-being of the fighters. As well, one is concerned for any damaged done to the furniture.
Costumes by Bonnie Persinger are pleasing and evoke a certain vintage flair. Properties Designer, Constance Robinson has done an amazing job collect the bric-a-brac that collects in living rooms. The best pieces are the antique lighters that the cast members are constantly lighting up their “ tobacco-free, nicotine-free, herbal mixtures for cigarettes and pipes.”
Cece McGee-Newbrough’s Fanny Farrelly is one of the best parts of Watch on the Rhine. Whether she is tossing out one of many, many outrageous one-liners or embarrassing her children and grandchildren with stories of the old days, Cece McGee-Newbrough’s Fanny is fantastic. Fanny is the bright thread woven through the story that keeps it from being too grim.
John Coe’s performance is also notable. He plays the stoic and duty-driven Kurt Muller to a fault. It is particularly impressive considering it is his first time on stage since high school.
Cribbage is not the only game being played by Count Teck de Brancovis (Timothy Sayles) when he spars with DC matriarch Fanny Farrely (CeCe McGee-Newbrough). Photo by Colburn Images.
Honorable mentions go to the Muller children, Joshua (Eli Pendry), Babette (Katie McMorrow), and Bodo (Drew Sharpe). With the exception of Bodo, they are not given many lines. Their German accents though were quite gut.
Director Terry Averill has marvelously brought Lillian Hellman’s vision to the stage for a new generation.If you have seen Casablanca and sympathised with Rick’s plight, you must see The Colonial Players’ excellent production of Watch on the Rhine.
Running Time: Approximately two and a half hours, with a 15-minute intermission.
Watch on the Rhineplays through March 21, 2015 at The Colonial Players of Annapolis—108 East Street, in Annapolis, MD. For tickets, call the box office at (410) 268-7373, or purchase them online.
Kaiulani Lee’s enthralling one woman show was one of the most engrossing hours I have ever experienced. Lee’s piece, A Sense of Wonder, is based on the life and works of Rachel Carson, best known for Silent Spring, which awakened individuals and the government to the dangerous side effects of the use of certain chemicals, including DDT. These chemicals had been used against foes in World War II but had never been tested for either agricultural or home use.
Carson, a highly trained scientist, writer and poet, rose as a prominent author with her second book, The Sea Around Us, which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks after its publication in 1950. She said that the study of science made a literary life possible because science was the subject. Carson argued that science and literature aim to discover and elucidate the truth even through there is little interaction between the two. Her three books about the sea required prose and poetry because there are certain things about the sea environment that can only be captured through poetry.
In presenting A Sense of Wonder, Lee used an acting method introduced in the early 20th century. The method has the actors coming to the stage with their real personalities and slowly sinking into the characters’. Lee’s 22 years of performing A Sense of Wonder, which she also wrote, made this process appear seamless.
Lee painted wonderful visuals with her words and motions. She first describes Carson’s cabin in Maine, perched on the shoreline surrounded on two sides by thick forest and two sides by the coast, one of which had a long rock spit jutting from it. The sets were very simple — in the first act they consisted of a writing chair and table with two small bookshelves behind. Lee also set a specific time frame with date, time of day, and the fact that it was one month after the publication of Silent Spring in 1962. Carson, after many delays, is finally packing up her belongings to return to Silver Spring, MD for the winter season. She knew it would be her last time in the cabin — she had been diagnosed with rapidly progressing cancer.
After the publication of Silent Spring, Carson became a pariah in the scientific community and found it difficult to obtain more scientific information. One professor who sent her his data was summarily fired. He was only re-hired when all the other science professors at the university threatened to quit.
The reception by the Federal Government was quite different. President Kennedy commissioned a Presidential Advisory Panel which supported her findings. Soon after, legislative committees began drafting environmental legislation.
Everywhere possible, Lee used Carson’s own words, including the memorable quote, “I believe that natural beauty has an essential place in development of a person or a society. This is especially important as we try to replace nature with man-made things.”
Lee was given most of Carson’s notes and diaries by Carson’s editor, Paul Brooks. When Lee ran into trouble integrating an understanding of Carson’s life with what she produced, Brooks sent her one last piece of Carson’s writing, “The subject chooses the writer.”
Kaiulani Lee in the film version of ‘A Sense of Wonder.’
A Sense of Wonder is packed with the results of both deep thinking and musings presented in a context that allows for easy and clear understanding of Carson’s goals and world-view. How wonderful that Lee, an Obie and Drama Desk Award winner with many other screen and stage plaudits, can tell such a subtle and personal story.
The story of Rachel Carson and the development of A Sense of Wonder is so marvelous that I could write pages about the content of the play and Lee’s additional remarks. Instead, I refer you to the PBS-taped performance which can be found for sale here.
This year, George Mason University School of Theater is presenting three productions as part of The STEAM Table at Mason. All three productions in this constellation have female authors and feature the integration of the Arts and Humanities with the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) in an effort to encourage an open conversation between the two, often disparate, groups.
The first play, Kaiulani Lee’s, A Sense of Wonder was enthralling. The remaining plays in the STEAM Table at Mason are In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play from February 26 – March 1 and An Experiment with an Air Pump from March 26 – April 4.
Here is more information about the STEAM Table at Mason, go to . Ticket information can be found either at the box office, (888) 945- 2468 oronline.
Running Time: One hour including pre-and post-performance discussions.
A Sense of Wonder was performed on February 6, 2015 at George Mason’s Harris Theater – 4373 Mason Pond Drive, in Fairfax, VA. For future events, go to their calendar of events.
LINKS
A Sense of Wonder film information found on Kaiulani Lee’swebsite.
In Part Three of a series of interviews with the cast and director of Shakespeare Theatre Company’s The Tempest, meet Director Ethan McSweeny.
Michael: I think a lot of people around town know who you are, but for those who don’t, could you introduce yourself to our readers and tell us what projects you’ve done in DC in the past year?
Ethan McSweeny.
Ethan: Well, none in the past year. As a director, I think showing up once every 12 months or so is pretty good (laughter). I am a native son of the city of Washington, born and raised here, within the city limits, actually.
That’s very rare, for somebody in DC you to actually be from DC.
It is. I tell you, I still have my DC drivers license.
My training years as a director were as the Associate Director at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in the early 1990s. I’ve been fortunate to come back fairly frequently over the last eight years or so. My shows in Washington have been: The Persians, Major Barbara, Ion, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Nights Dream, and now The Tempest.
That’s quite a pedigree.
Thank you, and I’ve also directed at Arena Stage, so I wouldn’t want to leave them out. I directed the pre-New York workshop of A Time To Kill, by John Grisham.
We are so glad you haven’t abandoned us for New York.
I love Washington, and my whole family still lives down here, so for me it’s always wonderful to come home. I think it’s important for audiences outside of New York to realize that, frankly, most of the best work in this country doesn’t happen in New York. A lot of it gets shown in New York, eventually, but it doesn’t take place there, that’s for sure.
As a native Washingtonian, how have you seen the theater scene here change since you were first working at Shakespeare Theatre Company?
Well, I can tell you since I’ve been going to theatre, how I’ve seen it change. As a kid I went to the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Arena Atage. In my teenage years Studio Theatre opened. And then when I came back post-college, the explosion had already begun. By that point, Signature was thriving, Roundhouse, Woolly Mammoth, so there was a lot going on. I have had the privilege of growing up here and then professionally being a part of this theatre community and had the privilege of watching it grow more and more diverse, spread out further and further into the greater Washington, DC area, and to support more and more artists who now make DC their home.
For instance, I’ve got two guys in The Tempest, Gregory Linington, who plays Antonio and David Bishins, who plays Sebastian; In the past five years or so Gregory has been part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival out in Ashland. But he and his partner just moved to New York, and then to Washington, nd they are expecting their first child at the beginning of the year. David Bishins has been living in New York for a 25-year career and he and his wife just moved to Washington She was coming down here to do some work but I think he’s going to stay! And that just points to the health of this theater scene. Although, I have to say, I do worry about the fact that there is so much going on, It’s hard to stand out in such a deep, crowded field.
Avery Glymph (Ferdinand), Rachel Mewbron (Miranda), and the ensemble of ‘The Tempest.’ Photo by Scott Suchman.
I’ve heard a lot from local artists that, in contrast to New York City, which is characterized as hypercompetitive, the DC theater community is much more closeknit and supportive of each other. Do you agree with that characterization?
Huh. (laughs). That’s an interesting question. I guess what I would say is that as proud as I am to be from here, since I’m not in residence all the time, I don’t think that I know the community well enough to say if that’s true. I’m delighted to hear that; I do think there’s a fair amount of support here, but I also think there’s a fair amount of support in New York, too. I don’t know that DC is any less competitive than New York. I suppose that the number of people competing in DC is not quite as many as in New York, So perhaps it doesn’t feel as hypercompetitive.
It’s common for a lot of people to start their careers here, and then make the move to New York, and sometimes that goes really well, and sometimes they burn out because of all the hustle you have to do just to stay in the running for things. I do think in a place like DC, people get established, wonderful actors get established, and productions get chosen around them, and I think the same is true for certain directors and designers, so there’s a sort of predictability that’s very nice when you’re in the unpredictable realm of being a freelance artist.
If you’re casting a show in Washington you have to cast local actors way before out of town actors, because they’ll all get booked up. So you have to get in there early, because that’s how they put together a season. A local after will do a show at Shakespeare, a show at Studio, Arena, or Signature.
Your new production of The Tempest, which is wonderful, opened at Sidney Harman Hall in December. What makes The Tempest unique among Shakespeare’s plays?
Thank you! Well, a lot of people think it was his last play. Although there is some evidence that he may have come out of retirement to collaborate on a few other works, I think they’re probably right, and when you view it through that lens, it’s impossible not to see and hear and it elements of the playwright evaluating his career and looking back on highlights, and still finding new ways to challenge himself as an artist. And I think those elements of the journey, considering who the playwright is, are pretty interesting. I mean, it’s a pretty interesting guy to be wondering, “Do I matter”? What have I created that will have any enduring appeal or is it all ephemera? So that’s a pretty key element to the play.
It’s also one of Shakespeare’s only plays that is Aristotelian in its unity of time and place. At the beginning of the play Prospero asks Ariel what time it is, and she says, “past the midseason.” And he says, “At least two glasses.” Right there, that’s Shakespeare telling us that it’s 2 o’clock. And right as the last scene starts, Prospero and Ariel have another strange And he says what time is it and she says at the sixth hour at which point he says “Our work should cease.” Now, I want to reassure any readers that that does not mean our production is four hours long –
Right.
– just a side note. But of course that would’ve been the length of the play for Elizabeth or Jacobean audiences. So I think that the unity of it is also part of the secret code that Prospero himself is some sort of master dramatist of his own revenge. Of course, Shakespeare himself was this master dramatist.
Clifton Duncan (Caliban) and Dave Quay (Stephano). Photo by Scott Suchman.
Another thing that scholars talk about when they talk about The Tempest is its themes of exploration colonization and, in our modern day, exploitation, particularly in the character of Caliban, played by Clifton Duncan. Did those elements influence your direction of the production?
Well, the origin of them originally is that when the play was written, it was on the heels of some of the earliest English explorations to Virginia, that started the Jamestown colony. And that expedition in fact met with a storm at sea and the lead ship was wrecked on Bermuda. And there was this sensational year they had to spend there before they rebuilt their boat and got off the island. That narrative got back to London, and created a lot of interest there. So there’s always been a kind of New World horizon to the play.
The understanding of the colonial narrative is one that’s emerged more strongly since the end of World War II in the postcolonial times. But it’s certainly one that’s embedded. Prospero has his dukedom taken away usurpation and he lands on this island and immediately deprives the inhabitants of their own Self-determination. And I didn’t want us to run away from that. And the language surrounding Caliban in particular is very harsh. A lot of the use of the word slave… And the thing that I think makes Clifton such a standout as Caliban is that he’s such a powerful actor, and he’s also capable of so much humor. What a lot of people miss is that even though Caliban is this great, tragic character, with so much inherent nobility, he spends most of the plot with the two clowns. And that’s part of his tragedy – he tries to take the island back from Prospero but he ends up with the wrong crowd. I’ve known Clifton for a long time and I think he’s an actor of extraordinary ability, And I wanted to cast Clifton as Caliban even before I was asked to do The Tempest. I really wanted to explore this role with him. And, he happens to be African-American.
Yes, that’s true.
And you’re not going to not notice that.
Did you worry that some people would look at that choice and think that you were playing into the supposedly racist legacy of The Tempest?
Yeah, I worried, but I thought that this was an important theme of the play. The very first image of Caliban is when he emerges from this hole in the ground chained to a huge rock. That’s a really loaded image, and it makes all of us uncomfortable. And it makes us uncomfortable because it should make us uncomfortable. And that’s where I think we’re probably getting it right. Because, the big theme of the play is ultimately forgiveness. What Prospero arrives at, in the course of what he imagines will be a classic revenge play, is that the greater virtue is in forgiveness rather than vengeance. As he forgives his brother, so he needs to be forgiven by Caliban, and I think there’s a bit of staging at the end that begins to suggest that possibility. So it was definitely a bold choice and an aware choice, and one that I think pays off richly.
So, without giving too much away I will say that there is a character who is in flight for much of the show
Well, what I’m curious about is: what were the unique challenges associated with working with that damn harness?
Sofia Jean Gomez as Ariel. Photo by Scott Suchman.
The idea was that it was important for me to show that Prospero was dominating both Ariel and Caliban, and so Ariel is physically tied by a visible rope that leads into the flyspace, A little bit like a marionette, rather than trying to do flying tricks with wires that you can’t see. And, together with [Flying Director] Stu Cox, we had to invent some relatively new technology in order to gauge the rope so that it was visible.
We started Sofia in flight training over the summer, And we brought the flight director and started her flying in the second week of rehearsal. We couldn’t really do it, of course, until we got into the theater. But we structured our rehearsals in such a way that we were getting in before we actually took the stage and before the stage was finished. It’s very challenging work. The harness itself is not particularly comfortable. Sofia really had to start building up her muscle tone and especially those muscles that would keep her supported and in the air. And we had to train the flight team because it’s really four, sometimes five people working in concert, making that effect work. They too, had to train and practice and they’re getting quite strong. The technology is very sound but it’s not particularly high tech, it’s very old school. There are ropes and you pull on them (laughs). And that’s not a computer or a motor pulling on them, that’s another person. And what that allows is a kind of breadth, and the more they do it, the more confident they become and also the greater ease. Things are floating a lot more than they did at first. The short answer is it took a lot of time and a lot of work and a lot of organizational efforts. In rehearsals, for a long time there was no way to imagine what it would actually look like with Ariel in the air.
In the rehearsal hall Sofia would just want to put her hands up in the air to show that she was flying. I’d be like, “where are you?” and she would be like, “Oh, I’m kind of over here dangling above him,” and we’d be like, “Oh, okay”. So I’m very please with it, and how it’s turned out both thematically and theatrically.
Did it make you nervous as a director to not know exactly what it was going to look like for a good deal of the process?
Yes (laughter). I think it made us all very nervous. A lot of what we do in the rehearsal hall is essentially an experiment because there are a lot of things where you think you know what they’re going to look like onstage but you don’t really know until you see it. So I see the rehearsal process as a place we can do a lot of guess work. And if you’re good at it and if you have a lot of experience you make relatively good guesses. But this was one where all the elements had to come together. We had to keep inventing a vocabulary, like, “What kind of flying was this going to be?” Because it’s not like we’re doing Peter Pan, which has its own set of flying vocabulary. We were building our vocabulary around what Sofia could do. And as we got more and more comfortable, she was able to do more and more things. I’m told she still working on an inverted entrance; we’re still looking for a place where she can dive
Wow.
It requires an enormous amount of guts, and I think she’s working her way up to that (laughs). It’s hard to overcome your body’s natural resistance because I know she knows she’s safe… But the body is still like, “I’m 40 feet above the stage.
Which character in The Tempest is most like yourself?
I don’t think any of them are remotely like me. I identify with all of the characters and none of them exclusively
Finally, Ethan McSweeny, what did you ask Santa for Christmas this year?
Well… Audiences.
Fair enough. Thank you so much for speaking with me today, and good luck with the rest of the run.
Thanks so much.
The Tempestplays through January 18, 2015, at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall – 610 F Street, NW, in Washington, DC. For tickets, call the box office at (202) 547-1122, or purchase them online.
Following its successful runs of the epic play Amadeus and the rock musical Next to Normal, CENTERSTAGE lines up a fantastic family rendering of Frank Capra’s beloved holiday classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life, as the third main stage production of its 2014-15 Season.
Directed by Nelson T. Eusebio, III, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play creatively combines the beloved film with the golden age of radio. Set in a 1940s radio “WBAL” studio, designed by Michael Locher, the show features a live sound effects artist/percussionist/pianist (Anthony Stultz) and five actors (Pun Bandhu, Ken Krugman, Joseph McGranaghan, Chiara Motley, and Eileen Rivera) who play every character in the production.
“The movie lives in three places – in the film itself, it lives in our audience’s memory of the film and it also lives in the live event we’re creating here,” Eusebio explains. “The key is not to imitate the film, but to take the heart of it, so it triggers the audience’s memory, it invokes it, and finally it allows us to inspire from that.”
As in the post-World War II era, audience members experience the magic of It’s a Wonderful Life much like a 1947 studio audience did when Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed performed the script live over the air shortly after its Academy Award nominations were announced. Under Eusebio’s artistic direction, the production closely follows the original film’s plotline, but in a more innovative, improvisational and imaginative presentation.
Film fans may recall, George Bailey (Joseph McGranaghan) has grown up in Bedford Falls, an idyllic small town, determined to get out. He plans to travel the world and build skyscrapers when he grows up. However, circumstances keep him at home. His father dies. The rich, evil Mr. Potter (Ken Krugman) tries to liquidate the Bailey family’s savings-and-loan business and take over the town. George’s brother, Harry (Pun Bandhu), marries a great woman whose father has offered him a promising career opportunity, far away from his hometown. When the accidental loss of $8,000 leaves George on the verge of disaster, he contemplates killing himself.
The heartwarming moment is lingering right around the corner, as Clarence (Pun Bandhu), George’s slightly bumbling 292-year-old guardian angel, comes to earth to help him. By showing George what Bedford Falls and numerous loved ones would have been like if George had never been born, Clarence manages to turn him around. Which is no surprise, since apparently without George, the town would have turned into pitiable Pottersville long ago. Lifted from a suicidal depression, George Bailey is a man with a reawakened appreciation of his life and the people he loves.
In this It’s a Wonderful Life, the actors, dressed in fashions and accessories suggesting that their characters live in the golden age of radio, almost certainly the 1940s, begin standing in front of microphones, scripts in hand, but they are soon moving about on and off the stage, gesturing and interacting in lively, realistic ways, with the help of only the radio-age equivalent of sound design. Seemingly true to life, the show appealed to rally its targeted Baltimore-area audience members by featuring an entertaining Old Bay commercial with a tuneful song that rouse applause and laughter.
Each of the five actors playing all of the roles in the adaption of Frank Capra’s script make their CENTERSTAGE debut with great panache and fervor. With the help of Director Nelson T. Eusebio, III, the cast create surprisingly vivid and fully believable characters — dozens of them. In addition to Mr. Potter, Ken Krugman also plays, among other characters, Uncle Billy; George’s son; the old man on the front porch telling George to kiss his future wife, Mary; and God. Pun Bandhu’s characters include Clarence the angel; George’s war-hero brother; Sam Wainwright; and the proud bar owner and homeowner Giuseppe Martini.
The very versatile Eileen Rivera’s characters include Violet, the town’s “bad girl”; George’s mother; Mary’s mother; and George’s daughter, Zuzu. Krugman, Bandu and Rivera’s respective portrayal of Mr. Potter, Clarence and Violet are particularly impressive and memorable. Likewise, Chiara Motley plays a convincing Mary, and Joseph McGranaghan does an outstanding job as George. Anthony Stultz, the onstage Foley artist, is literally instrumental in heightening the production quality with his sharp precision and inventive sound effects, effectively employing everything from a thunder sheet to a wind machine to a vintage siren – all on-the-fly.
Setting the dial high for a double dose of nostalgia, CENTERSTAGE’s It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play strikingly brings to life, in a delightfully poignant stage adaptation, Frank Capra’s beloved holiday season drama of sacrifice and redemption in an endearing, evocative exhibition that hearkens back to the golden age of radio when families gathered together for inspirational broadcasts and wholesome entertainment, splendidly recreating the much-loved celebration of goodwill, community and cheer in the face of hardship.
Running Time: Approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.
It’s a Wonderful Life plays through December 21, 2014 at CENTERSTAGE—700 North Calvert Street in Baltimore, MD. For tickets, call the box office at (410) 332-0033, or purchase them online.
Shakespeare, the humanist; Shakespeare, the poet; Shakespeare, the political playwright; Shakespeare, the fatalist.
Et Tu, Brute? Anthony Cochrane (as Brutus) and Michael Sharon (Caesar). Photo by Teresa Wood.
Before he passed away, my 87-year-old father used to quiz members of the younger generations whom he’d meet at grocery stores and the like on their knowledge of history. He’d ask them: “Who crossed the Rubicon?”
He’d get mostly blank looks, the occasional “Rubicon? Never met him. Is he famous?” Rarely did he get: “Julius Caesar!”
Director Robert Richmond’s Julius Caesar and its illuminated production now playing at the Folger Theatre would have made my father proud. Its tragic ritual and the hooded actors who perform its dance of destruction elevate history into the realm of religious enactment. And, as a result, the audience sits in witness to the demise of good and honorable men.
The most honorable of those men is the Everyman, Brutus. You will not find a more reasonable, noble-hearted, loving, compassionate assassin anywhere. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is his tragedy. It is his demise that makes the audience suffer, for in him they see themselves, in many ways an ordinary man faced with an extraordinary situation.
In 49 B.C. Rome was a Republic. Roman leaders and generals returning from military campaigns were not allowed to bring their armies into Italy. The Rubicon, the river then on the northern edge of Italy, was a boundary not to be crossed; the General and soldiers who did so were considered outlaws and traitors.
In 49 B.C. a triumphant Julius Caesar, returning home from successful invasions of Gaul and Briton, used his popularity and brought his army over the Rubicon and declared himself dictator of the Roman Republic. Five years later, fearful that republican government was at an end, a group of senators, led by Caesar’s friend Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated Caesar.
Civil war erupted, and ironically, a few years later the Republic came to an end, and the Imperial Roman Empire began.
And, as Cassius says, unaware of the cosmic irony swirling around him:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Folger’s production of the classic text proves that Shakespeare’s insights into the workings of politics and human nature are spot on, for the 400-year-old text about a twenty-one-hundred-year-old coup and civil war speaks as boldly about events today as it must have at its original performance during Elizabeth I’s final years with her uncertain succession looming.
Many of us look with disgust, as Cassius does, at the politics of power: an arrogant, but very talented Caesar, the richest man in Italy, declares himself dictator.
Some of us, as the thoughtful, temperate Brutus does, agonize over the direction of the country. If a poll had been taken in 49 B.C., uncertainty would surely have reigned. If a poll had been taken in 1776, a divided colony would have deadlocked in despair. What happened next?
Think Articles of Confederation and a non-existent Federal government.
Think Constitution and the binding of the States in Federalism.
Think the Imperial Presidency and the weakening of congressional powers.
Think of all the bitter in-fighting, the backroom deals and the back-stabbing.
Think impeachment, or rather the absence thereof: assassination by any other name would end as bitterly.
Yet, social upheaval, civil war, regime change—the overturning of a corrupt, inefficient status quo equals slaughter and bloodshed as the battle for power rages.
Think American Revolution.
Think French Revolution.
Think 1968.
Think People Power in the Philippines.
Think collapse of the financial system.
Think Arab Spring.
Mark Antony (Maurice Jones) reads Caesar’s will to the people. Photo by Jeff Malet.
In Richmond’s brilliant production—the man really knows how to read a Shakespearean text and make it as human as kitchen sink realism—the meaning of Caesar’s fateful decision to cross that Rubicon drones like evil spirits in our ears, and Caesar’s words: “Alea iacta est” (“The die is cast”) couldn’t be clearer, particularly as they relate to dear Brutus.
Certain decisions lead to a certainty of results. As in chess, the fateful move happens long before the final move. Watching Julius Caesar, mesmerized as we are by the excellent acting and the superlative designs, we are nevertheless aware that the tragedy is certain: that there is no reverse on this train roaring to a head-on with a mountain, that the gods of tragedy like the gods of war and coups and revolutions and assassinations lead to slaughter and mayhem and death.
Think World War I
Think World War II
Think Cold War
Think the War on Terror
There are no winners and losers, good guys and bad guys, saviors and anti-christs. Each man or woman makes his or her decision to drink to loyalty, or shake hands with treason, or fall on one’s sharpened sword, and that decision has little to do with some larger sense of history.
Right and wrong like clouds passing before the sun only dim the vista of what is about to come.
The ritual of change takes us where it wishes. And we must await the outcome of the game.
Folger’s Julius Caesar should not be missed: its metaphysics, like its tragic dirge, will take you places that this melodramatic world dare not: into your own tragic heart.
Running Time: Two hours, with one 15- minute intermission.
Julius Caesar plays through December 7, 2014 at Folger Theatre at the Folger Shakespeare Library—201 East Capitol Street, SE, in Washington, DC. For tickets, call the box office at (202) 544-7077, or purchase them online.
It’s that time of year when The Capital Fringe Festival rolls into town. Everyone has a show, there are over 100 every year. An exciting new preview-interview of goodies to come is right here for your reading convenience; this particular article features a brand new company called “1Up Theatre” and the dark comedy mashup show, Saving Private Poo. I sat down with Landless Theatre Company’s Associate Artistic Director and Saving Private Poo co-creator/director Steve Custer to talk about the show they are presenting at Fringe this 2014 summer season.
Amanda Gunther: Steve, thank you for sitting down with me, tell me a little bit about the show you’re getting ready to put on at The Capital Fringe.
Steve Custer.
Steve Custer: I am putting up Saving Private Poo, which I have co-written with Ian Hoch. We worked on this show together for Landless Theatre Company’s Third Annual Mash-up festival, which premiered after their production of Frankenstein. The show itself is a hybrid of ideas between Winnie The Pooh and Saving Private Ryan pitting the likeness of the loveable 100 Acre Wood characters and splashing them right into the center of World War II.
You’re mounting this show outside of Landless now, as a part of a new theatre company?
Yes, it’s a little side project company serving as a writing avenue for Ian and I. The theatre company is called “1Up Theatre” just like Super Mario Bros. Or like the traditions of ancient Greece, if you come see one of our shows, you’ll be taking on an extra life. So… (In the voice of Mario) Here we go!
You mentioned this was originally a project that you’ve done before, but that it has changed, can you tell us a little bit about how it’s changed?
The initial mash-up guideline for Landless was that it had to be performed in 35 minutes. This is now extended to 50 minutes. There were ten chapters before, beginning each scene in the style of a narrator reading out the chapter title. The narrator would say “Chapter One: In which we are introduced to Winnie the Poo and some Nazis, and our story begins.” So we still have that but each of the chapters have been extended to be a bit longer. There’s new dialogue that has been incorporated and inspired by Band of Brothers, The Thin Red Line, and of course the overarching plot line that we’re following is still from Saving Private Ryan.
We’ve added some additional World War II— how do I phrase this? We’re using references from popular World War II media that people will recognize and understand when they see it. I would say if you want to know exactly what I’m talking about, you probably need to come see the show. But I will say that there is some more inclusion and inspiration from Inglorious Bastards.
Has the cast differed at all from when you mounted the production a year ago?
Oh yes, we do have some new people on board but have retained most of the original cast. Same Poo, Piglet, Owl, and Kangaroo 2. Ian will be reprising his role of the Tiger and I’ll be playing a Nazi.
Christopher Robin— sorry, Captain Christopher Robinson is now being played by Matt Baughman. To be perfectly honest the part was initially written for him. I had wanted him to play that role the first time around, but he had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts. Russell Silber (who originated Robinson) has been shifted to another role, as well as Adam Adkins who will now be donning the tail of Donkey. And finally, we have some newcomers — LTC performing alum and MET company member Devin Gaither will be playing Rabbit, and Ashley Hall has joined the cast as Kangaroo 1. It will be a nice mix of old and new.
When people think of Fringe shows they tend to have a certain connotation that go along with it. What was it that made you decide you wanted to mount this show at Capital Fringe, and how does it fit into what Fringe markets as their artistic motto?
Well, I wanted to showcase the show a little more. Ian and I together, as the writers, thought its best chance was being co-produced at Fringe. There are other mash-ups we’ve considered doing, whether they were for the LTC mash-up festival or somewhere like Fringe, this was the one we thought would do the best at this festival.
This is my first experience producing a show at Fringe. I’ve acted in Fringe shows before but I’ve never put up a show on my own before. Ian is my financial partner in all of this but I’ve been doing all the paperwork, writing the press release, making images, etc. Devin Gaither is a designer as well so she’s been helping out with the images. This has been a whole new experience for me but what I’ve noticed is that the name draw of a show has everything to do with Fringe. Saving Private Poo is catchy enough. I think people are going to see the name, say “what is that? Is that what I think it is? Oh, yes it is.” And that will be enough to draw them in. We had to write a 10-word marketing tag. And I came up with “The mission is a man saving a bear. Oh, bother.” It was clever enough in the ten words to tell you what it’s about and give you some nostalgic flavor.
Where is your venue, and when do you open?
Redrum! I love Redrum! And it has air-conditioning! For having 11 actors including myself on stage it’s a nice sized space. It’s not too big but it doesn’t feel cramped. We open on the first Saturday of Fringe— Saturday July 12th at 5:30 pm. We have six shows total. We play every Saturday, two Sunday shows, and one random Tuesday in there as well. So it’s double what we had for the mash-up festival, it’s not 10 pm at night in the middle of Columbia Heights, and it’s in a properly air-conditioned venue.
That first Saturday is a huge deal at Fringe. I’m very excited that we have it. It’s a coveted slot to have heading into the early evening on that first Saturday. Come see Honey Company! That’s what I’m calling the cast. We’re in the perfect time slot. It’s 80 seats, so get your tickets early! We’re going to fill it!
What’s the draw other than the name and your very clever marketing tag?
We have comedy and drama. We have parody and seriousness. You’ll feel the gravity around mid-show when a major plot twist occurs— again, if you want to know what happens, you have to come see it— but we still manage to keep a flowery language of youth and nostalgia amid the drama that will keep you reminiscing long after Fringe. We hit a major shift in tonality going from light-hearted parody to something super serious super quick, and I think we handle it really well. For a mash-up of ideas that features a spotlight on dark comedy, we make it work, which I feel fits nicely with Fringe. The festival speaks to all manners of comedies and dramas and everything in-between.
Where can we keep up with what’s happening with this show?
We have a Twitter handle as well! @SavingPrivatePoo and we have a hashtag— #SavePoo
So we’re using a lot of social media to really spread the word. Within a week’s time we had close to 200 likes on the Facebook page. And I’d love to up the ante on that as we move forward. That’s not at all a shameless plug to go and like our Facebook page. Not at all.
There are 134 different shows at Fringe why should people pick Saving Private Poo out of those 134?
Aside from the fact that we have air conditioning in July, for the 50 minutes that we run, Saving Private Poo gives you a very well-rounded show. You get your dose of comedy, you get your dose of drama, you get some stage combat, you get some moments where you’re really feeling nostalgic and that will start tugging at your heartstrings. The show really does cover a lot of bases and I feel like you walk away from it entertained, but also wondering what you just saw, specifically questioning Captain Christopher Robinson. How old is this kid now that he’s having this kind of adventure with his stuffed animals?
In a way, this is my version of Dog Sees God meets 100-acre wood gang, AKA “Honey Company.” That’s kind of what I want to impart on people. It’s something familiar to them already, but it’s going to be different and fun to think about.
Capital Fringe Showtimes: Saturday, July 12th – 5:30 PM Sunday, July 13th – 6:15 PM Tuesday, July 15th-– 10:00 PM Saturday, July 19th – 6:45 PM Saturday, July 26th – 10:30 PM Sunday, July 27th – 4:30 PM
VENUE Fort Fringe – Redrum Theatre is located at 612 L Street, NW – Washington, DC)
